New York, Jan 03, 2004
NRIpress
The trial will open in New Jersey tomorrow, but his local lawyer believes
that Mr Lakhani, who has no criminal record or known ties to terrorism,
was the victim of entrapment by American and Russian agents working
on behalf of the US. Haji, later discovered to be a double agent working
for the FBI, walked free.
THE two men who stood in the presidential suite overlooking Newark
airport gazed through the window at aircraft landing and taking off.
They smiled at the prospect of blowing the aircraft out of the skies.
Their conversation was conspiratorial and filled with hatred for the
United States. “The Americans are bastards,” said Hemant Lakhani,
a Londoner who had flown in the night before from Heathrow.
His host spoke of how he wanted to start a jihad (holy war) by blowing
up passenger aircraft across America.
The meeting between Mr Lakhani, 69, an Indian-born Briton who posed
as the supplier of ground-to-air missiles, and his companion, who used
only his middle name — Haji — lasted for almost three hours
and was the culmination of nearly two years of careful planning.
Haji claimed to be acting on behalf of Muslim extremists, originally
from Somalia, who had formed a terrorist cell in the United States.
He said that he wanted to buy Soviet-made weapons. Mr Lakhani told Haji
that with the missiles he could provide, it would be possible to co-ordinate
a series of attacks.
“If 15 planes come down at the same time, they will be shaken,”
Mr Lakhani boasted.
The handover never took place. Instead, FBI agents, who had been in
the neighbouring room listening, poured into the $550-a-night (£310)
hotel suite to arrest Mr Lakhani.
He was charged with a series of terrorist offences, including smuggling
ground-to-air missiles into America. He was also charged with attempting
to provide material support to terrorism and with money- laundering.
The apparent success of the arrest was praised by President Bush, who
took an unusually close interest. “We got a significant arms-dealer
and a dangerous terrorist,” he said. “This is a major step
in the global war against terrorism.” His praise was, in part,
reassurance to the American people, who had become increasingly paranoid.
Yet despite the infusion of $18 billion to combat terrorism and the
introduction of tougher laws, such as the Patriot Act, there have been
few terrorist convictions in the US.
Far from being a leading terrorist, Mr Lakhani was allegedly, at best,
a minor if unscrupulous trader who has failed at virtually every deal
that he tried to set up. Henry Klingeman, his lawyer, will argue that
he is a victim of entrapment and “if there was any crime committed,
it was only because of the extraordinary steps taken by the US government
agents”.
In London’s West End rag trade, people who know Mr Lakhani describe
him as “more Del Boy than Del Boy”, after the character in
Only Fools and Horses. Martin Greene, a businessman who has known Mr
Lakhani for 35 years, said: “Everything Lakhani touches has turned
to dust. He always had big ideas, big plans and was always working on
the ultimate deal. Trouble is, the man’s a complete loser.”
Hemant Lakhani is dwarfed by the prisoners and guards in Passaic County
Jail in New Jersey, where he has been held for 16 months. His hair,
once neatly cut and dyed black, is now almost entirely white and cascades
over his ears.
In interviews Mr Lakhani pleaded his innocence. “I am not a terrorist,
and not associated with any terrorist group,” he said. “If
I am guilty of anything, it is stupidity and greed. All I wanted to
do was to make money, but I got myself into something I didn’t
know much about.
“Yes, I said those terrible things. But I didn’t mean them.
Haji made me say these bad things. He had a way of opening a conversation
for me and then expecting me to say bad words. Haji knew our conversations
were being recorded, I didn’t. He played me along to say these
bad things because I thought that was what he wanted to hear from me.”
Mr Lakhani, originally from Gujarat in India, arrived in London as
a lawyer in 1958. He joined the expanding fashion industry in the West
End. In prison he spoke of his connections to “important people
and those with real status”.
His life changed, he said, after he was introduced to Haji by a business
acquaintance in Dubai in 2001. Although Mr Lakhani claimed not to be
an arms-dealer, he admitted brokering a deal in 2003 that involved the
sale of 11 armoured vehicles to the President of Angola.
“Yes that is true,” he said, “but that was different,
that was as a favour to a friend. I simply brokered that.”
Catalogues of Soviet-made armaments were discovered by Scotland Yard
anti-terrorist officers at his home in Hendon, North London, soon after
his arrest in August 2003. But he said: “Haji asked me for these
catalogues, I got them from the suppliers. I was just trying to impress
him.”